The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl

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Director Ray Muller's three-hour portrait of controversial filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl grapples with the central controversy of her career: was she a "pure" filmmaker whose political naiveté allowed her stunning visions to be harnessed by Hitler, or was she the key mythmaker of the Nazi propaganda machine? The dancer turned actress turned director is well represented with generous clips from her work both in front of and behind the camera, from the ethereally beautiful The Blue Light through the romantic fantasy Teifland, with special focus on her two most famous works: the stunning propaganda piece The Triumph of the Will (a chillingly brilliant work of demagoguery which she helped design and stage as well as film) and the poetic, technically breathtaking documentary Olympia. After her exile from filmmaking, she became an acclaimed ethnographic photographer and more recently a scuba diver and underwater photographer. Though she was over 90 at the time of the interviews, Riefenstahl's energy and commanding presence dominate the film and overpower Muller. At one point she practically grabs the directorial reins from him. The film never really resolves her complicity as a Nazi propagandist; she maintains her innocence while Muller questions her assertions with contrary evidence, but he appears too awed to really push the issue. Whatever your feelings, it's hard not to come away from this film just a little awed by the talented and tenacious Ms. Riefenstahl yourself. --Sean Axmaker

Description

In this remarkable documentary, Leni Riefenstahl--the woman best known as Hitler's moviemaker--addresses her past for the first time on camera. Creator of the single most effective propaganda film ever made, Riefenstahl has spent much of her life trying to live down her association with the Nazi Party--which she never actually joined. Feisty and charismatic at 91, Riefenstahl revisits the landmarks of her turbulent life. A riveting story that leaves the viewer in total awe of its controversial subject.

Customer Reviews:

Portrait of the last Nazi.......2007-03-21

While this is indeed an excellent film, it's also at best a rather shallow one. True, Reifenstahl does come across as creepy, at best, and her excuses ring hollow to anyone who's read the facts of her well documented life. But the filmmakers pretty much gave her a free ride here, never challenging or pressing her on her lies and denials, and presenting a very sanitized view of her life.

What really distrubs me is the number of reviewers who are willing to suspend judgment of the moral dimension of her acts, and even praise her- one even calls her a strong model for women. I suppose that's true, in the same sense that Stalin was a strong model for men. But it's also disturbing. It reminds us all how easy it is for a charismatic leader to find weak minded followers who will willing blind themselves to evil, and even encourage it to flourish.

fascinating and chilling.......2007-01-15

I had no knowledge of Leni Riefenstahl, her social/political significance in society or why she was so controversial until this aired on PBS, in 1994. Riefenstahl, best known for directing two infamous documentaries, THE TRIUMPH OF THE WILL and OLYMPIAD, that sympathetically depicted the Nazi party. Riefenstahl, born in Berlin, began as an interpretive dancer, a movie star, a mountain climber and then a filmmaker.

What was my perception of Len Riefenstahl? I think that she was an incredibly charismatic individual (even at the age of 90, when the film was made). I felt a little sick when they were discussing the Nazis, and her part in (her words) unknowingly glorifying the party's beliefs. I am not sure if I was convinced of that at all. However, this is a very important film that takes a look at the body of work of a very prolific, independent and fiesty woman who stood on her own two feet, up until the very end of her life.

The wonderful Leni..........2007-01-08

It has always irritated me to no visible end that people, to this day, blame Ms. Riefenstahl for Nazism. It shows how people can be so narrow minded as to lay the blame of a horrifying political movement at the feet of an artist. Richard Wagner also gets blamed for Nazism as well, but that's another review. Leni is one of the few female film directors who has a great visual style (which is used to great effect, and horrifying effect, in Triumph of the Will). Her film Olympia is still amongst the greatest sports documentaries ever made. The techinques she uses are still used by TV sports directors today. In this film, we see a 90 year old Leni Riefenstahl, who is as tenancious, vivacious, and as combative as ever. Leni is the most beautiful 90 year old woman I have ever seen, personally. She talks passionately about her work, and remembers the filming of the 1936 Olymipics and the Nuremberg rally as if it was only yesterday. I think she is a great artist, and it is ridiculously narrow minded to blame her for the Nazis. It is always easy to blame an artist for society's ills. This usually shows the stupidity of politicians more than anything else. Yes, she was associated with Hitler, one of the world's most heinous dictators, but that shouldn't dismiss her contribution to cinematic art. At the time of this film, Leni was scuba diving, engaging in underwater photography, and had a male companion/boyfriend a third of her age. Despite her age, she was incredibly active, and I think that's fantastic. She is a great artist, period.

Lovely Lady.......2005-11-13

We'll probably never know if she was a nazi collaborator or just an artist who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. All that I know is she was quite a hotty in her silent films.

The Judgment of History.......2005-10-15

The question of 'controversy' inevitably comes up in this film. As a film maker for the Nazi Party, wasn't Riefenstahl equally guilty for the crimes of that regime? So Ray Muller tentatively asks Riefenstahl, so too do contemporary viewers of the 21st century.

This is an ahistorical attitude, typically made by people with no understanding of history (and no interest in it) and who have a simple minded view of the function of art (that it makes people do things they wouldn't ordinarily do). We have all been educated to abhor the Nazis. But this condemnation of Riefenstahl is witch hunting and itself has fascist overtones.

What was it like at the time, the 1930s in Germany? Riefenstahl effectively answers the charge. She says, correctly, that at the time she worked for Hitler the Nazi Party was seen as the saviour of Germany. Hitler was widely popular, not just in Germany but in both England and America. The discovery that he was a 'monster' and a war criminal was revealed by the Nuremberg Trials in the late 40s, and it has been promulgated ever since as anti Nazi propaganda. Riefenstahl was tried and exonerated by the Nuremberg commission, but has nevertheless been punished all her life, her right to film denied, her reputation tarnished. Courts mught need them, but public opinion has no need of proofs.

Riefenstahl impressed me in this film as a great intelligence, wiser by far than those who criticised her. Atrocities in war have been committed by all countries, and as citizens we all have moral complicity in these outrages to humanity. Does anybody remember the story about the woman taken in adultery, about those without sin throwing the first stone? (this comment a good Zen koan by the way).

Riefenstahl, most importantly, is a great film maker, one of the greatest. Seeing her and her team reminisce about how their films were made is to see people who have had an enormous influence on the lives of all who watch films today. Riefenstahl's comments and responses showed her as someone who could see around the questions in which her critics were bogged down. The film is a valuable presentation of an individual who could be correctly described as a genius. There is no denying the impressiveness of the woman, just as an interviewee. The fact that she taught herself to act, and to direct, inventing many staple technologies and techniques of the industry as she went on, puts her on a level with someone like D W Griffiths (interestingly, Griffiths has been tarred and feathered as a white supremist because he concurred in the beliefs expressed in Birth of a Nation). Denied access to film making (to the world's great loss) it is almost not surprising that Riefenstahl went on to be one of the world's greatest photographers, active till her 90s. Muller's film is an immensely valuable record of an extraordinary person.

The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl

Average customer rating:

Portrait of the last Nazi
fascinating and chilling
The wonderful Leni...
Lovely Lady
The Judgment of History

The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl
Starring: Marlene Dietrich , Walter Frentz , Josef Goebbels , Rudolf Hess , and Adolf Hitler
Manufacturer: Image Entertainment 2
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B00000FE2R
Release Date: 1999-04-27